452 Pope Leo I convinces Attila the Hun not to attack Rome, with the help of a bribe

1191 Saladin burns Haifa

1283 Battle of Malta: Ruggiero di Lauria's Aragonese & Sicilians defeat the Angevin fleet in Malta Harbor

1520 Battle of Otumba: Cortes defeats the Aztecs

1573 Spanish capture Haarlem from the Dutch after a seven-month siege

1709 Poltava: Tsar Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden

1758 Disastrous British/Provincial assault on French-held Ft Carillon/Ticonderoga

1776 Col John Nixon gives the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence

1838 Arabs attack Jewish community of Safed in Palestine

1853 Commo Matthew C. Perry sails frigate Susquehanna into Tokyo Bay

1860 Great Fire of Dallas touches off slave insurrection hysteria across central Texas, scores of blacks lynched

1861 Skirmish at Florida, Ms

1861 Skirmish at Laurel Hill/Bealington, WVa

1865 C.E. Barnes receives a US patent for a machine gun

1876 The Hamburg Massacre: White racist attackers leave 6 black men dead in South Carolina

1898 Commo George Dewey's US forces occupy Isla Grande at Manila

1912 Capt Enrico Millo takes an Italian MTB sqn into the Dardanelles, to raid Turkish shipping in the Marmora

1918 Ambulance driver Ernest Hemingway wounded at Fossalto, on the Piave

1941 Nazis order Jews in the Baltic States to wear a Star of David

1944 British troops capture Caen, a month behind schedule

1944 Guam shelled by U.S. ships

1945 TF38 arrives off Japan with 20 carriers; to stay until the war is over

1950 Douglas MacArthur named CinC UN forces in Korea